Not A Love Story

~ 2 ~

A few days earlier, Henrietta Cullin was just your regular princess. Being pampered was her usual. Her kingdom, the Yutica kingdom on the planet Nibiru, was a small one, but peaceful. She was about to be the sole ruler of the nation. She had a magical power, though only her parents, the king, and queen knew, she could shapeshift into any human form. She was genderfluid, you see, so this power came in handy. Her life was pretty mundane, usual princess stuff, so she was greatly looking for something new. Just a taste of it would be fine. Their birthday arrived. It was a whole grand celebration. She blew the candles and made a wish, 'Dear almighty, please, please, pleaseeeee, let me be part of an adventure. Any adventure.'

Once the celebration ended, she headed to her chambers and found a mysterious letter right on her pillow as she was about to go to bed. Henrietta picked it up curiously, going to her window for some moonlight to read, but to her dismay, she spotted something not too far from her on the ground. Something stood at the end of the courtyard fence, watching and waiting and perfectly patient.

This creeped her out. Nighttime adventure. They went out in their androgynous form, so the guards won't know, hopping over the fence and looking around. Their luck must've been very bad because there was a sudden bright flash and when they opened their eyes after the flash had passed, they found themselves in a very small room. It looked like a house as they started to move around, but it was so strange...

It was a very small house, the whole house the size of her chamber back in the castle, filled with unknown items. Henrietta just didn't touch it. She seemed to be unable to shapeshift as often as she usually could in this world. Their first day in the tiny house, they'd managed to find strange but edible things in a big cool cabinet, and very strange but soft items to dress. The second day, they decided to look around, but that just resulted in some suspicious people asking them all sorts of questions, nothing they understood except the language. The people looked all the same but all the more different too.

This was the fourth day of them being here when a lady came to them all beaten up, after being robbed and fainted in their arms. They treated her wounds gently. This all was exhausting. They hated all these situations. The food didn't taste good, the clothes were so thin they might as well have been stripping to their underwear. Everything aside they missed their parents.

A day or two passed by. The new stranger seemed to be passing out now and then, but during the time she was up, Henrietta had learned her name was Jay, she was an orphan, and lived alone. She was what they called a college student. Henrietta introduced herself as was true, at least according to her, a princess of the Yutica kingdom, from a different planet called Nibiru, the queen to be, and that she could shapeshift.

Ophelia was astonished by how vivid the man's imagination went. Shapeshifting? Different planets? Those were the concepts she didn't believe even as a kid, though she found the company of the "princess" soothing. She helped the man make something better than instant foods that were expired. How did this strange man..or woman, their name was Henrietta, and they were a princess, even survive after consuming this much-expired material?!

Ophelia, or Jay, for now, had decided to rent a place nearby for the short while, just to make completely sure that the "princess" wasn't a terrorist. She visited the princess every day. They seemed lonely whenever they weren't chatting with her and some part of her didn't like how that made her feel sad too. She'd gotten over her attraction to Henrietta, or that's what she told herself. They were only a mission, nothing else. Only a mission. Nothing. Else.

Weeks turned to months, Henrietta couldn't find any way to get back to their family. They'd grown closer to Jay. She was fun. She taught them a lot about this world and even made them forget they didn't belong here.

One of these days, Henrietta was roaming around with Jay, both of them blissfully unaware that they'd accidentally entered a turf war area, and the biggest gangs of the city had been fighting there. Ophelia cursed herself for not bringing her gun, which was very negligent of her as a spy. She took Henrietta by their hand and ran to the nearest building, rushing up the stairs to the roof.

The gangs must've assumed both of them were a member of the opposite gangs because now they were being attempted to be shot and stabbed at.

Ophelia found a rope big enough, tying it around her and Henrietta's waist, and without giving the other a chance to even think to refute, she tied the rope to a stump and climbed down, barely dodging the bullets.

Henrietta was safe but worked up by this. The adrenaline rush after fleeting with their life was horrible. They hated how it felt. They'd asked for an adventure, but this? This was unacceptable.

Seeing two people dangle like this, the residents of the house right below had called the fire department, getting them off from the rooftop.

Ophelia had submitted her last report after six months of invigilating (and having a not-so-secret crush on) Henrietta. It was finally time to go back for another mission, but before that Ophelia felt like she needed to have a perfect closure.